His son's fine taste an op'ner vista loves,
Foe to the Dryads of his father's groves ;
Onc boundless green or flourish'd carpet views, 95
With all the mournful family of yews ;
The thriving plants ignoble broomsticks made,
Now sweep those alleys they were born to shade.

At Timon's villa let us pass a day,
Where all cry out, "What sums are thrown away ?'
So proud, so grand; of that stupendous air, 101
Soft and agreeable come never there.
Greatness with Timon dwells in such a draught,
As brings all Brobdingnag before your thought.
To compass this, his building is a town, 105
His pond an ocean, his parterre a down :
Who but must laugh the master when he sees,
A puny insect shiv'ring at a breeze !
Lo, what huge heaps of littleness around !
The whole a labor'd quarry above ground.

110
Two Cupids squirt before ; a lake behind
Improves the keenness of the northern winds.
His gardens next your admiration call;
On ev'ry side you look, behold the wall!
No pleasing intricacies intervene,

118
No artful wildness to perplex the scene ;
Grove nods at grove, cach alley has a brother,
And half the platform just reflects the other..
The suff'ring eye inverted Nature sees,
Trees cut to statues, statyes thick as ees;

120
With here a fountain never to be play'd,
And there a summer-house that knows no sbade ;

Here Amphitritè sails through myrtle bow'rs,
There gladiators fight, or die in flow'rs;
Unwater'd see the drooping sea-horse mourn, 125
And swallows roost in Nilus' dusty urn.

My lord advances with majestic mien,
Smit with the mighty pleasure to be seen :
But soft-by regular approach---not yet- 129
First through the length of yon hot terrace sweat ;
And when up ten steep slopes you've dragg'd your

thighs, Just at his study door he'll bless your eyes.

His study! with what authors is it stor'd ? In books, not authors, curious is my Lord; To all their dated backs he turns you round ; 135 These Aldus printed, those Du Sueil has bound ! Lo, some are vellum, and the rest as good, For all his Lordship knows, but they are wood ! For Locke or Milton 'tis in vain to look ; These shelves admit not any modern book.

And now the chapel's silver bell you hear, That summons you to all the pride of pray'r : Light quirks of music, broken and unevin, Make the soul dance upon a jig to heav'n. On painted cielings you devoutly stare, 145 Where sprawl the saints of Verrio or Laguerre, Or gilded clouds in fair expansion lie, And bring all Paradise before your eye.' To rest the cushion and soft Dean invice, Who never mentions hell to ears polite. 150

140, But hark ! the chiming clocks to dinner call; A hundred footsteps scrape the marble hall : The rich buffet well-color'd serpents grace, And gaping Tritons spew to wash your face, Is this a dinner ? this a genial room ? 155 No, it's a temple, and a hecatomb; A solemn sacrifice perform'd in state, You drink by measure, and to minutes eat. So quick retires each flying course, you'd swear Sancho's dread Doctor and his wand were there. Between each act the trembling salvers ring, 161 From Soup to sweet wine, and God bless the King. In plenty starving tantaliz’d in state, And complaisantly help'd to all I hate, Treated, caress’d, and tir’d, I take my leave, 165 Sick of his civil pride from morn to eve; I curse such lavish cost and little skill, And swear no day was ever past so ill.

Yet hence the poor are cloth'd, the hungry fed ; Health to: himself and to his infants bred 170 The lab'rer bears ; what bis hard heart denies His charitable vanity supplies.

Another age shall see the golden ear Imbrown the slope, and not on the parterre. Deep harvests bury all his pride has plann'd, 175 And laughing Ceres reassume the land.

Who then shall grace, or who improve the soil ? Who plants like Bathurst, or who builds like

Boyle?

'Tis use alone that sanctifies expense, And splendor borrows all her rays from sense. 180

His father's acres who enjoys in peace, Or makes his neighbors glad if he increase ; Whose cheerful tenants bless their yearly toil, Yet to their lord owe more than to the soil; Whose ample lawns are not asham'd to feed 185 The milky heifer and deserving steed: Whose rising forests not for pride or show, But future buildings, future navies grow; Let his plantations stretch from down to down, First shade a country, and then raise a town. 190 You, too, proceed! make falling arts your care, Erect new wonders, and the old repair ; Jones and Palladio to themselves restore, And be whate'er Vitruvius was before : Till kings call forth th’ ideas of your mind, 195 (Proud to accomplish what such hands design'd) Bid harbors open, public ways extend, Bid temples worthier of the God ascend ; Bid the broad arch the dang’rous flood contain, The mole projected break the roaring main; 200 Back to his bounds this subject sea command, And roll obedient rivers through the land : These honors Peace to happy Britain brings ; These are imperial works, and worthy kings. 204

TO MR. ADDISON. *

(Occasioned by his Dialogues on Medals.]
See the wild waste of all-devouring years !
How Rome her own sad sepulchre appears,
With nodding arches, broken temples, spread !
The very tombs now vanish'd like their dead !
Imperial wonders rais'd on nations spoild,
Where mix'd with slaves the groaning martyr toil’d:
Huge theatres, that now unpeopled woods,
Now drain'd a distant country of her floods ;
Fanes, which admiring gods with pride survey,
Statues of men scarce less alive than they!
Some felt the silent stroke of mould'ring age,
Some hostile fury, some religious rage ;
Barbarian blindness, Christian zeal conspire,
And Papal piety, and Gothic fire.
Perhaps, by its own ruins sav'd from flame,
Some bury'd marble balf preserves a name;

* This was originally written in the year 1715, when Mr. Addison, not yet Secretary of State, had prepared his book of Medais for the press, but not published till Mr. Tickell's edition ctAddisoul's works in 1720; when the verses on Mr. Craggs, which conclude this poem, were added.

As the third Epistle treated of the extremes of avarice and profusion; and the fourth book upon one particular branch of the latter, namely, the vanity of expence in people of wealth and quality, and was therefore a corollary to the third ; so this treats of one circumstance of that variety, as it appears in the common collectors of old coins; and therefore a corollary to the fourth,

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